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SHORT HISTORY OF 

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BY 



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ALFONSO XIII., King of Spain 



r^ A 

SHORT HISTORY 

OF 

, SPAIN 



BY 

MARY PLATT PARMELE 



No. I. 

The Great Round World Quarterly 

April, 1898 



SECOND EDITION 



New York : 

THE GREAT ROUND WORLD PUBLISHING CO. 

5 West 18th Street 



<^ 



Copyright, 1898, by 

THE GREAT ROUND WORLD PUBLISHING CO. 

New York 



liAR 1 I 19W 



SHORT HISTORY OF SPAIN 



EUROPE is like a garden which has 
been planted at long intervals with 
different kinds of seeds ; all alike brought 
from that same Aryan garden in Asia, but 
widely differing from each other in quality. 
None ever bore such blossom and such 
fruit as those first choice seeds which were 
scattered in Greece. In fact, none bore 
any fruit or blossom at all until they were 
grafted with the first marveiloifs growth 
from that classic land.: 

The rest sent out great outspreading 
branches, and grew into rank forests ; and 
their deep, strong roots became at last 
so interlaced and intermingled that the 
original character of the growth was some- 
times lost. 

Such was the case in Spain. That 



SPAIN 



8 Sbort Ibletov^ of Spaim 

sunny corner in Uie European garden was 
in the early ages thickly planted with 
Keltic Aryans. They were not gifted like 
OLD the Pelasgians. They built no temples, 
created no civilization; but for ages con- 
tinued to be simple, rude barbarians, wor- 
shipping the sky, the sun, the stars, the 
ocean, the thunder, and the bird, in groves 
of sacred oak, where they offered sacri- 
fices to these terrible powers of nature. 
This religion was called Druid, It pre- 
vailed in Gaul (ancient France and Spain), 
in Britain, and in most of the lands 
peopled by Aryans, and meant ''Sons of 

We read that the people of ancient Tyre 
and other Eastern cities used to sail to 
Tarshish, and come back laden with treas- 
ure. Now, do you know that that distant 
land was the southern coast of Spain just 
west of Gibraltar? 

The poets and prophets of the Bible have 
much to say of this Tarshish, showing the 
communication then existing between the 



Sbort 1bf6tor^ of Spain. 9 

Spanish coast and the world of Isaiah and 
of Job! 



wmMm 




THEN a century after Homer, when the 
young Greek nation was expanding^ BIBLICAL 
they too sent ships to Tarshish , and founded TIMES 
cities and colonies on the Spanish coast. 
And when they returned to Greece they 
told of the two pillars which had been set 
up by the great god Hercules at the en- 
trance to the sea (Gibraltar) . These Pil- 
lars of Hercules were intended to mark the 
end of the habitable globe, beyond which 
none might dare to venture. For it was a 
region of horror and of mystery ! 

But it was not until after Greece had run 
its course, and been swallowed up by the 
growing republic west of her, that the 
Spanish peninsula came to be really known. 



10 Sbort fbietox^ of Spalm 

It was the mailed hand of the Koroan 
which dragged it out of mystery and ob- 
scurity ; and it came about in this way : 

The ancient Phoenicians had long ago 
built the city of Carthage on the northern 
coast of Africa, and these Carthaginians, 
who had become a great people, were the 
one powerful rival of the young Roman 
republic, which had just swallowed Greece 
and felt a strong desire to absorb every- 
thing within her reach. 

The Carthaginians had also long ago 
PUNIC built cities in Spain; and when, in a war 
WARS with the Romans, they lost their islands of 
Sardinia and Sicily, they found the Span- 
ish peninsula a convenient place from which 
to direct their operations against Rome, 
and they destroyed Saguntum, the one 
Roman city in Spain, and claimed the en- 
tire peninsula as their own. So in those 
great " Punic Wars" (as the wars between 
Rome and Carthage wete called) the 
Romans first learned the value and the 
beauty of this Spanish peninsula. And 



Sbort 1bt0tor^ ot Spain. il 

after they had conquered Hannibal, and 
had destroyed his great city of Carthage, 
and ploughed it, and sowed it with salt, 
they turned their eyes upon the fair His- 
pania (as they called it) and adopted it as 
their own. 

So in time the Romans covered Spain, 
or Hispania, with their own civilization 
(which, as we have seen, was borrowed 
from the Greeks !) . Their speech and their 
customs effaced the old barbarism and 
Druidism. They founded great cities — 
Cordova, Cadiz, and others; built roads 
and aqueducts, and temples, and amphi- 
theatres for their games and festivals, and 
for four hundred years Spain was com- 
pletely Romanized, and the original Keltic 
Aryans were merely the soil out of which 
the transplanted civilization grew and 
flourished. But after a time the great 
Roman empire became old and feeble. The 
Goths had been tormenting her for four cen- 
turies. They had sapped her vitality and 
broken her spirit; and now a stream of 



12 Sbort 1bt0tor^ of Spain* 

that dreadful people had long been setting 

toward the southwest— few in numbers at 

first, but with increasing volume — until 

Kome in her helpless old age discovered 

that her beautiful Hispania was overrun 

by her own terrible destroyers, the Goths. 

_ There were two branches of this invad- 

GOTHIC . ^ ^ ^ ■ ^ 

INVASION ^^S host: the Ostrogoths, or Eastern, 

and the Visigoths, meaning the Western. 
The Ostrogoths were in Italy, and it was 
the Visigoths who had been surging over 
the Pyrenees. By the year 415 a.d. there 
was a Gothic empire in Spain, and the 
rule of the Visigoth kings had commenced. 
It seemed a great misfortune to have 
a civilization four hundred years old 
trampled under foot by barbarians. But 
no better thing could have happened to 
Spain. Each needed what the other pos- 
sessed. The luxurious, effeminate Romans 
were recreated by the manly vigor of the 
Goths; and the rough, untutored but in- 
telligent Goths hungrily absorbed refining 
art and culture from the Romans. 



Sbort Ibtetor^ ot Spain. 



18 



The result was a vigorous government in 
the hands of the Goth, who in turn sur- 
rendered his own habits and speech and 
submissively adopted those of E-omanized 
Spain. So the conquerors were con- 
quered by the higher civilization! They 
ceased to be barbarians, and were partly 
merged with the weaker race, whom they 
ruled with a strong hand. 

The Goths brought with them into Spain 
a simple form of Christianity. 

A Christian boy named Ulfilas, whom 
they had captured off the coast of Asia 
Minor in the fourth century, told his cap- 
tors the story of Christ. They had no 
written language, so this wonderful youth 
invented an alphabet of twenty-two letters, 
and translated the Bible into the Gothic 
speech. 

This simple Christianity which the 
Goths had learned from Ulfilas and his 
Bible told nothing about the Trinity, nor 
any of the mysteries which the church had 
been puzzling over since Eome had adopted 



EARLY 
CHRISTI- 
ANITY 



14 Sbort 1bl6tori2 ot Spain. 

her, and which had been finally explained 
by great church councils. 

So the childlike religion brought by the 
Goths into Spain was considered by the 
learned and converted Eomans very wicked 
heresy, because it knew nothing about these 
sacred dogmas of the church. And the 
Goths in turn hated those strange doctrines 
of which Ulfilas had said nothing, and of 
which their Gothic Bible said not a word ! 

Then Spain was deluged with the blood 
shed by these opposing factions of the 
church of Christ, fighting to the death over 
dogmas which neither understood. Two 
centuries earlier, it was the blood of the 
early Christians with which Eome was 
drenching the soil of Spain. But in the 
fourth century the wicked old Boman 
Empire had been converted to Christian- 
ity; and now, she undertook to decide 
what that Christianity meant and what it 
did not mean. And disagreeing with the 
decisions of her church council meant 
heresy. And heresy meant death! 



Sbort IDlstori^ ot Spain. 



15 



The Gothic Empire had at first extended 
beyond the Pyrenees. But another Ger- 
man race, the Franks, had snatched that 
land from the expiring empire, and now 
all of eastern Gaul was becoming France. 

These Franks had also become Chris- 
tians. It was a poor sort of Christianity, 
as you have seen, after the Roman Empire 
had adopted it and decided what it meant ! 
But it was better than Greek paganism, and 
far better than Druidism, and with all its 
imperfections it was the hope of the world. 

So for three hundred years the Visigoth 
kings ruled Spain with a strong hand and 
fought the battles of their simple faith. 
They compelled the people to speak the 
Latin language, but in doing so, there was 
placed upon it the Gothic form of speech. 
The Spanish language is the result of this 
strange mingling of Latin and Gothic; 
and it is for that reason extremely easy 
for English-speaking people to learn. 
The words all have Latin roots ; but, like 
our own, they are put together in simple 



ORIGINAL 
SPANISH 
LAN- 
GUAGE 



16 Sbort 1bl6tor^ of Spain. 

Gothic fasliion. In the year 709, while 
Eoderick, the last Visigoth king, was sit- 
ting at his capital in Toledo, a strange host 
began to arrive on the southern coast of 
Spain; armed men, swarthy and tur- 
banned, unlike any ever before seen in 
Spain. 

This was the beginning of that great Mo- 
hammedan invasion, the results of which 
we are witnessing to-day. From that ill- 
omened hour in 709 to this March of 1898 
the Mohammedan has been in Europe ; for 
centuries threatening to overwhelm it, and 
for other centuries refusing to be dislodged 
from the territory he has blighted and 
made his own. From that distant day to 
this a battle has waged between the two 
civilizations — Mohammedanism and Chris- 
tianity. One the creator of darkness and 
the other of light ! And it was a strange 
sight we beheld recently when Greece, 
the smallest kingdom in Europe, was the 
standard-bearer of one and the Sultan of 
Turkey of the other 1 



Sbort 1bl0tori2 of Spain* 17 

The dusky host which poured into Sjjain 
in 709 and overturned the Gothic Empire, SARACEN 
were called Saracens. They had come 
from Arabia, conquering as they came, and 
had colonized the north coast of Africa. 
From that point they had formed their 
plan to conquer Spain, and thence, all of 
Europe. 

The first Arab chief who landed on 
Sjjanish soil was named Tarif, and after 
him that spot was called Tarifa. This 
was later the place where duties were 
levied upon incoming ships. Hence it is 
that our word is tariff, a strange memorial 
of ilie first Arab Moslem who set foot in 
Europe ! 

As the Yisigoths had for three centuries 
ruled Romanized Spain, so now the Sara- 
cens for three centuries more ruled that 
land through their caliphs at Cordova, and 
for four centuries after that had their own 
Moorish kings in southern Spain. As the 
Visigoths had brought renewed strength to 
an enfeebled race, so now the Saracens 



18 Sbort 1bi0tori5 ot Spatm 

brought learning and the art of beauty to a 
race which had become semi-barbarous. 

THE extinguishing of the old 
Roman civilization by the 
Goths was followed in Europe 
by a time of darkest night; 
and it was during these cen- 
turies of darkness that the 
Spanish Arabs illuminated 
Spain with a splendid civ- 
/ ilization. They converted 

desert places into verdant 
gardens. They created fairy palaces, and 
mosques, and built aqueducts, and had 
vast libraries (one at Cordova of 600,000 
volumes), and all this at the very time 
known in Europe as the Dark Ages I 

The ruins of the mosque they erected at 
Cordova give us to-day some idea of its 
fabulous magnificence. On entering this 
ruin to-day with the remains of its four 
thousand pillars of colorjed marbles, it 
looks like a pine forest, with overarch- 
ing branches at the top; and in the time 



Sbort Ibistors ot Spain. 



19 



of its glory it must have been of dazzling 
splendor. 

The Spaniards mixed as little as pos- 
sible with these Asiatic invaders, and 
proudly kept themselves aloof in the 
northern provinces of Spain, cherishing 
memories of their vanished kings and 
greatness. 

One of the earliest symptoms of decline 
in a poiver is its loss of unity. The decline 
of the Moors in Spain commenced when 
they began to quarrel among themselves. 
Then the Spaniards began to recover little 
by little their lost territory, the power of 
the Spaniards in the north increasing as 
that of the Moors in the south declined. 
For centuries the Christian kingdom and 
the Moslem kingdom lived side by side, 
the Spaniard encroaching farther and 
farther upon the Moor, until at last the 
Moorish Empire, which had once held 
sway over all of Spain, was narrowed down 
to the little province of Grenada, two hun- 
dred miles long. And there, in the city of 



DECLINE 

OF 

MOORISH 

EMPIRE 



FERDI- 
NAND 
AND ISA- 
BELLA 



20 Sbort Ibtator^ ot Spain* 

that name, the kings of Grenada reigned 
in that wonderful palace of the AJhamhra^ 
which travellers visit to-day and where they 
gaze in wonder at its labyrinth of corri- 
dors, halls, and apartments all filled with 
legends of snltauas, and stained with the 
blood of treacherous assassinations; its 
subterranean vaults and passages burrow- 
ing into the mountain depths, and, it is 
said, still containing treasures of vanished 
kings. 

In the fifteenth century the Spanish 
provinces of Castile and of Arragon had 
absorbed the other smaller kingdoms of 
Spain. The Spaniards were rich in pride 
and in memories, but very poor in money. 
And when the young Isabella, Princess of 
Castile, was married to her Cousin Ferdi- 
nand, Prince of Arragon, she had to bor- 
row money to pay for her marriage ex- 
penses. 

Isabella's soul was filled with one lofty - 
purpose. That was the expelling of the 
Moors from Spain and the restoration of 



Sbort 1F3t6ton2 of Spain* 31 

the empire of the cross in her entire 
country. And it was under her powerful 
influence that Ferdinand embarked in the 
final struggle against the Moors. 

So it is not strange that in 1484, Colum- 
bus with his great project of discovery had 
to wait long years before his sovereigns 
would listen to him. But in 1492, Gre- 
nada, the last stronghold of the Moors, had 
fallen, and Boabdil, the last Moorish king, 
extended to the Spanish king the great 
keys of the Alhambra, saying: "These 
keys are thine, O king, since Allah has 
decreed it. Be not unmerciful to the van- 
quished." 

So the Arabian empire in Spain, after 
seven hundred and eighty-three years, had 
expired. Fragments of the conquered race 
lingered in the country, but in less than a 
century the last of these were forcibly 
driven on board galleys and conveyed to 
the African coast. Then the Moors were 
extinct in the land of their adoption, 
which they had brought to a prosperity 



COLUM- 
BUS^ 
VOYAGE 



22 Sbort Ibietot^ of Spafn* 

and intellectual greatness never since sur- 
passed. 

It was Isabella who accomplished this 
great end for Spain; and it was Isabella 
who won for Spain her new empire in the 
West, which brought untold wealth into 
the royal treasury — wealth so fabulous 
that the queen must have smiled as she re- 
called the time when she had to borrow 
money to pay for the expenses of her mar- 
riage with Ferdinand. 

Isabella had a powerful mind and great 
nobility of soul and of character. It was 
a great moment for Columbus, and for the 
world, when in the face of opposition from 
Ferdinand and her court, she proudly 
arose and said: "I undertake it for the 
crown of Castile. I will pledge my jewels 
for this voyage of discovery !" And great 
must have been her satisfaction and joy 
when the news came of land beyond the 
Atlantic ! And for Columbus — no moment 
ever exceeded that in which he was royally 
received by the queen who had trusted 



, Sbort 1bi6tori2 ot Spain. 23 

him, and upon whom he had bestowed a 
new empire ! Although Spain loaded him 
with chains and broke his heart after that, 
she could never take away the memory of 
that hour. 

This great queen and woman had heavy 
sorrows. Her only son, heir to the com- 
bined thrones of Castile and Arragon, died 
just after his marriage with the daugh- 
ter of Maximilian, Emperor of Germany. 
Another child, wife of the King of Por- 
tugal, also died, and was soon followed by 
her infant, who would have united the 
crowns of Portugal and Spain. Another 
daughter, who married the son of the Em- 
peror of Germany, became insane, while 
still another had a fate scarcely less unfor- 
tunate. She became the wife of that ter- 
rible King of England, Henry VIIL, and 
was known as the unhappy Catharine of 
Arragon. 

So all the queen's hopes were centred in 
her grandchild, Charles, the son of her 
crazed daughter. How she would have 



24 Sbort 1bi6tori2 ot Spalm 

been consoled had she known that as 
Charles V. of Germany and Charles I. of. 
Spain this child was to become the greatest 
sovereign in Europe. But she did not know 
this. Nor did she ever know the grandeur 
of the discovery she had enabled Columbus 
to make; nor that she was the innocent 
means of bringing destruction and awful 
miseries upon a helpless race of beings 
whom it was her dream to Christianize! 
Nor did she realize that in zeal for her 
adored religion she had created the most 
awful instrument of cruelty that ever ex- 
isted. 

The unbelieving Jews in Spain were a 
source of grief to Isabella, second only to 
the infidel Moors. To her devout soul 
heresy was the greatest of alhevils, because 
it led to death eternal. Torquemada, her 
spiritual adviser, convinced her that the 
cause of the holy faith required either 
the conversion or the extermination of 
these infidel Jews. 

With this end in view a court of inquisi- 



Sbort 1bi6tox^ ot Spain, 25 

tion was established; that is, a court in- 
tended to inquire into the religious belief 
of suspected persons, who if found guilty 
of heresy were punished with horrible 
severity. ^ 

TOKQUEMADA was 
^.^ the creator and 

ifc^Cl^^A inquisitor- general 

^^W^'T of this awful tri- ^^Q]^^^' 

' bunal to which 

Isabella gave re- 
■^ ^ luctant consent, 

even as a mother might consent to the 
punishment of a child for its own good. 
And so while the Spaniards were practis- 
ing their first cruelties upon those innocent 
natives of the West Indies, the Jews were 
beiDg hunted out of Spain by this terrible 
Inquisition. 

But it was Isabella's hand which guided 
Spain into the path of national greatness 
at this time. From being the most ob- 
scure of the European states, it suddenly 
took rank among the great kingdoms. 



26 Sbort 1bi6tors of Spain. 

The alliances planned for her children 
were wise and far-reaching, although all 
failed of the great ends she intended ex- 
cepting that of her insane daughter, 

Charles, the son of this Joanna, was the 
CHARLES L heir not alone to the Spanish crown, but 
to the larger and heavier crown of Ger- 
many, for which he and Francis I. (of 
France) fiercely contended. The wearer 
of that crown would rule all of central 
Europe; and if awarded to Charles, his 
dominion would extend besides over Spain, 
and over all her new and vast possessions 
in the West. The electors of Germany 
preferred Charles to Francis, and so it 
was that Isabella's grandson, when only 
nineteen years old, was the greatest sover- 
eign in Europe, and ruled an empire upon 
which the sun never set. 

What had been in Isabella simply an 
ardent longing to save souls from destruc- 
tion and a devout belief in her own sacred 
religion, reappeared in Charles, her grand- 
son, in the form of intense bigotry. Just 



Sbort 1bl9tori5 of Spain* 27 

as ardently as she had fought against 
Moslem Moors and heretic Jews in Spain, 
he spent his energies and his reign in try- 
ing to destroy another and a new form of 
heresy. 

Protestantism was born the year after 
Charles assumed the crown (1517), and 
the Inquisition had a larger and richer 
field for its horrible work. After thirty- 
nine years of fruitless struggle with this 
growing Protestantism; after the wheel, 
and the rack, and the stake had failed to 
check this greatest of all heresies, the 
weary Charles was ready to lay down his 
crown. He abdicated in favor of his son 
Philip and retired to a monastery, where 
he died. 

It is a strange fact that Isabella, that 
admirable queen and woman, uncon- 
sciously created the two conditions which 
gave the keynote to Spanish character 
and policy. She bestowed upon Spain 
those sources of fabulous wealth in the 
New World, and she created the Inqui- 



PHILIP 



28 Sbort 1bl0tor^ of Spain. 

sition! The first developed that cv.pidity, 
or love of gold, which became the ruling 
passion in Spain, while the Inquisition, 
in the name of religion, extinguished the 
very sentiment of pity in the Spanish 
heart. So when cupidity became the rul- 
ing passion, side by side with it grew that 
twin demon, cruelty. 

The messengers of Charles V. had been 
in the New World extending his empire 
farther and farther toward the West—Cor- 
tez in Mexico, Pizarro in Peru, and cruel 
discoverers wherever gold glistened, carry- 
ing into a new hemisphere misery which 
can never be measured. From the em- 
peror on his throne to the humblest Span- 
ish adventurer in America the word mercy 
was unknown, and cupidity and cruelty 
were the end and the means ! 

But the reign of Charles was tender and 
gentle compared with that of his son 
Philip. Never has civilized and Chris- 
tian monarch perpetrated such cruelties 
over such an extent of territory, as 



Sbort Ibtetor^ of Spain. 29 

did this unscrupulous, fascinating, death- 
dealing son of Charles V. It is consoling 
to remember that he married that terrible 
daughtei' of Henry VIII. and Catharine of 
Arragon, known as Bloody Mary, which 
was some slight retribution. But he did 
not let her make him very miserable, as he 
lived almost all the time far away from his 
English queen ; who, it is said, was vainly 
striving to win his love by burning heretics 
in England. 

Of course the object of this marriage 
with Mary was the greater glory of Spain 
in the union of Spain and England under 
one crown. But the death of Mary, fol- 
lowed by the accession of her Protestant 
sister Elizabeth, put an end to that dream. 
So Philip determined to get by conquest 
what he could not acquire by marriage. 
But the defeat of the Spanish Armada by 
Elizabeth's ships forever put an end to 
these ambitious designs upon Protestant 
England. 

At this time Spain had reached the 



30 Sbott 1bt6tori2 ot Spafn. 

height of her splendor. She was the en- 
HIDALGOS vied of Europe. Kings bowed down to 
her and humbly asked for her infantas 
and princes for their sons and daughters. 
No nobles in Europe were prouder than 
the Spanish grandees, or Hidalgos; and 
the very name Castilian caused a thrill of 
admiring wonder — and does yet! Castile 
was the centre of the old Spanish life and 
traditions during all the dark centuries of 
the Moorish occupation. And the word 
Hidalgo was originally three* Spanish 
words — Hijo de algo ; meaning son of 
somebody. And just as our ''Sons oj the 
Bevolution'' take pride in being the sons 
of American patriots, so these Hidalgos 
gloried in being descended from the an- 
cient heroes of the days of the Visigoth 
kings. 

They never ceased to pray and hope for 
the restoration of their race, and when 
the time was ripe, they splendidly re- 
claimed the throne of their ancestors as I 
have just told you. Is it strange that they 



Sbort 1bt6tor^ ot Spain. 81 

took pride in their past? But greater 
glories awaited tliem. 

-It was Spain which equipped the fleets 
and sent out Columbus, Magellan, Balboa, 
De Soto; and it was Spanish daring, cour- 
age, and adventure which unlocked the 
mystery of a new hemisx-)here. 

Her viceroys in Mexico, Peru, and the 
West Indies ruled over lands fabulous in 
size and in wealth, and a stream of inex- 
haustible riches was flowing back across 
the ocean pathway which they themselves 
had made. 

The imagination cannot conceive any- 
thing more splendidly romantic than the 
history of Spain at this time, and the 
wealth and the glory she swiftly attained 
between the day when Ferdinand and 
Isabella received the keys of the Alhambra 
from Boabdil, and the dav when she was 
annexed to the empire of Germany, and 
was at the head of Europe ! 

The shadows in the picture, deep and 
terrible, mingle with lights dazzling and 



32 Sbort Ibietot^ of Spain* 

magnificent. But the shadows were going 
to spread and deepen, and the lights with- 
in a century were to grow dim. Other na- 
NORTH tions were in the New World. There was 

AMERICA ^j^ English colony in North America, not 
COLONIES , . . .... 

eagerly wringing treasure out of the soil, 

but putting treasure into it. That priceless 
treasure, character and manhood, was be- 
ing thickly planted in New England, and 
laying foundations deep and wide for an 
empire which was going to crowd the 
Spaniard out of the New World he had 
discovered. 

Nations cannot live on past glories, any 
more than men. A mantle, however mag- 
nificent it may be, grows shabby with 
time, and needs to be renewed. Two cen- 
turies after Isabella, Spain produced no 
more heroes, and her kings were feeble 
and incompetent. She still proudly wore 
her mantle of glory, but it was getting old 
and tarnished. The other nations no 
longer feared and flattered her. They 
were no longer afraid she would absorb 



Sbort Ibietors ot Spain. 83 

them, but began to think of absorbing 
her. 

You know how quickly the vultures find 
out when an animal is dying, and how 
they hover over it impatient for the feast. 
Well, the very same thing happens to 
great kingdoms. 

You remember how swiftly the Saracen 
vultures scented from afar the dying Roman 
Empire ! Another old empire is perishing 
to-day in the southeast of Europe, and 
you have seen how eagerly the vultures are 
watching and waiting, each fearing the 
other will get to the banquet first. And 
when one hujigrier and stronger than the 
rest, unable longer to wait, nibbles around 
the edges, the rest fly at him in a frenzy 
and drive him away. And they do so only 
because they are so sorry for the poor sick 
creature, who, they declare, shall not be 
disturbed, but just left to die comfortably ! 

Well, when Spain's glory had departed, 
the nations which had once been afraid of 
her began to think of devouring her, and 



34- Sbort 1bt0tori5 of Spafm 

every time her throne has been vacant (and 
it has had a habit of getting vacant !) there 
has been a scramble for it; all her great 
neighbors having princes claiming to be 
related to the royal house of Spain, and in 
this way having a claim to the succession. 

When other nations decide who shall 
and who shall not occupy a vacant throne, 
that country's greatness lies far behind it. 
Such a moment arrived for Spain in the 
year 1700. 

The greatest power in Europe at that 
time was the kingdom of France, and 
Louis XIV. was the sovereign before 
whom all the others were bowing down. 
One would have supposed that the great 
Louis had had glory and conquest enough 
to satisfy a mortal king. But he wanled 
more; and he always wanted Spain, and 
thought the Pyrenees were a mistake! 
That is, that there should be no barrier 
between France and Spain, which should 
be one country. Early in life he had 
married the infanta, or daughter, of the 



Sbort 1bt6tor^ of Spain. 35 

King of Spain; but he had been obliged 
before doing so to renounce for his heirs 
all claim upon that throne. 

Now, in 1700, the King of Spain had 
died, and there was no heir in the regular 
succession. There were several young 
princes in Europe, more or less nearly 
connected with the royal * line in Spain, 
but none more closely than the grandson 
of Louis XIV., whose grandmother was 
the infanta. There was everything to 
make him the most eligible and desirable 
candidate, the only obstacle being that 
renunciation years before. So the oppor- 
tunity had come to the ambitious king, 
and between him and the long coveted 
throne of Spain there lay only a little 
promise. 

Finally the matter of succession, which 
was to be decided by the Pope, was all 
comfortably arranged. The Pope and 
Louis, after "prayerful deliberation, "fixed 
up the little trouble about the promise, 
and Louis' grandson, nineteen years old, 



86 



Sbort 1bl0ton^ ot Spain, 



SPANISH 
BOUR- 
BONS 



was proclaimed King of Spain. The great 
Frencli king, in the fulness of his satis- 
faction, exclaimed, "The Pyrenees have 
ceased to exist !" meaning that his grand- 
son would one day be sovereign of both 
countries. But the Pyrenees have stood 
solidly ever since, and Spain and France 
have never been united under one crown. 

With this event the reign of the descen- 
dants of Ferdinand and Isabella, the real 
Spanish sovereigns, was at an end. The 
Spanish Bourbons, beginning with this 
young Philip, were, as you can see, in 
reality French, with only a Spanish strain 
in their blood; and, excepting for a few 
intervals of time, that house has ruled 
Spain ever since and does so to-day. 

In the mean time there was a large group 
of Spanish provinces in the northern part 
of South America and in the West Indies 
leading a miserable existence. They were 
ruled by viceroys sent from Spain, and 
were in fact little more than slaves toiling 
not for themselves, but for a cruel and 



Sbort 1bl6tor^ of Spain. 37 

avaricious master. Three hundred j^ears 
of this sort of servitude had made of 
them a humble, submissive race, hopiug 
and expecting nothing better. 

But in the year 1776 something hap- 
pened in the New World which caused a 
thrill like an electric shock. The nations 
of Europe were stupefied with amazement. 
A little handful of English colonists re- 
volted against the tyranny of their mother 
country, and declared their purpose to be- 
come a free and independent people. 

Unhappil^^ for England she had a king 
and a minister, who supposed that British EFFECT OF 
manhood in America was something differ- qan REV 
ent from British manhood in England; OLUTION 
and that she might after the manner of 
Spain use her prosperous colonies for the 
benefit of herself. It was a fatal mistake. 
But it led to one of the most momentous 
events in history. Not for America alone, 
but for the world a new epoch commenced, 
when the United States of America took 
its place among the nations of the earth. 



38 Sbort 1bl0tot^ ot Spalm 

In looking rapidly in this way over the 
history of centuries, we see that great 
kingdoms are no more permanent than the 
clouds in the sky. There is incessant 
change. While we are looking at them 
they dissolve and change in shape; great 
masses breaking up into fragments and little 
ones piling up into great shining moun- 
tains. A time was now approaching when 
these overturnings in the European sky 
were going to be more complete and rapid 
than ever before. 

France had made a terrible experiment 
in trying to be like free America. She 
had passed through her awful " Eeign of 
Terror," and then had been held in the 
firm grasp of her new master. Napoleon 
Bonaparte. 

This man was not content with ruling 
France; he aspired to be a world-con- 
queror like Alexander, Caesar, and Charle- 
magne. And it looked at one time as if 
he might succeed. He overturned most of 
the thrones in Europe and placed upon 



Sbort 1bl6tori^ of Spain, 39 

them members of liis own liouseliold. You 
know in playing chess, if you get your 
pawn into the king row, it becomes a king ; 
or a queen, which is the same thing. So 
this wonderful player pushed up his 
pawns one after another, and finally his 
brother Joseph was in the "king row," 
and the crown of Spain was placed upon 
his head ! 

But the great Napoleonic storm-cloud 
which had suddenly darkened Europe dis- 
solved as quickly as it came. In less than 
ten years the man who had threatened to 
be the master of Europe was a prisoner 
in the distant island of St. Helena, and 
King Joseph had ignominiously fled from 
Spain with one little gold piece in his 
pocket. 

The Spanish Bourbons were restored to 
the miserable and now distracted country. 
That prosperous free republic in America 
(the United States) was having a mischie- 
vous effect upon the Spanish colonies in 
South America. Several were already in 



40 Sbott 1bi6tor^ of Spain* 

revolt. It began to look as if, instead of 
one, there might be several young repub- 
lics across the sea, and that Spain would 
lose a great part of her splendid trans- 
Atlantic possessions. So three of the king- 
doms of Europe formed a sort of " Euro- 
pean concert." They called it the "Holy 
Alliance." Its purpose was the putting 
down of this mischievous spirit of free- 
dom, and the defence of what they called 
the "divine right of kings." 

That sort of thing would have done very 
tJr^T %r w^U i^ *^^ seventeenth or even the eigh- 

ALLIANCE teenth century — but this was the nine- 
-^^^ teenth ! There was a new and very differ- 

DOCTRINE ^^* spii'it in the air. In spite of the Holy 
Alliance, and in spite of the resistance of 
Spain, in 1826 James Monroe, President 
of the United States of America, acknowl- 
edged the independence of five South 
American states, and one after another 
the governments of Europe were obliged 
to do the same. 
For over three centuries Spain had ruled 



Sbort fbistov^ ot Spatn^ 41 

one of the richest and most beautiful por- 
tions of the globe. She had shown her- 
self perfectly unfit for the responsibility 
and undeserving of the great opportunity. 
The loss was terrible and humiliating, but 
it was richly deserved. 

YOU know that losses in property 
_^ and in position sometimes make 

^ people cross. The people in 

Spain were very cross. They 
were asking why their once 
r great country had dwindled into 

insignificance? Some thought 
f it was because she had too much 

freedom; and others that she 
had not enough. So two political parties 
arose, a liberal, and a reactionary party. 
The one desired a freer constitution in 
keeping with a new age, and the other 
believed that the good old despotic way of 
ruling with a tight rein was the safe one. 
They claimed that the Holy Alliance had 
shown the true way to deal with new- 
fangled theories about human rights and 



42 Sbort IbiBtot^ of Spain* 

freedom. And some even recalled the fact 
that it was in the days of the Inquisition 
that their country had been so glorious ! 

Just at this time (1830) there was 
trouble about the "Spanish succession," 
that is, about who should occupy the 
throne in case of the death of King Ferdi- 
nand, who had succeeded Joseph Bona- 
parte. Ferdinand's only child was an 
DON 7 
CARLOS infant daughter. The party of extreme 

views about monarchy and religion in- 
sisted that Don Carlos, brother of the 
king, was the proper heir, because at one 
time the " Salic law" (or the law excluding 
females from the throne) had prevailed in 
Sj^ain. The liberal party insisted that 
that law was no longer in force and that 
the little Isabella was the rightful heir. 
Party feeling ran very high. The advo- 
cates of Don Carlos were called Carlists. 
From that time until our own, there has 
been always a Don Carlos to represent 
these extreme views. And in all times of 
trouble or uncertainty the Carlists have 



Sbort 1bt0tori5 ot Spatm 43 

been watching and scheming to get into 
power and are an ever-present source of 
danger in Spanish politics. 

But the liberal party was triumphant, 
and the crown of Spain passed in 1833 to 
the little Isabella. A queen should be all 
that is glorious. Unhappily for Spain, 
Isabella developed qualities which would 
have disgraced the humblest station in life ; 
and in 1868, so great was the indignation 
at her conduct that she was obliged to flee 
from the country, taking with her her son 
and daughter. So again there was a 
vacant throne in Spain ! 

Sick and weary of their own Spanish 
Bourbons, the people resolved to try a 
new experiment. They offered the crown 
to Amadeo, a younger son of Humbert, 
King of Italy. But after three years the 
young Italian prince was glad to lay down 
the uncomfortable burden; and the people 
were quite as glad to have him go. And 
now again there was the ever-returning 
problem of a vacant throne ! 



CASTE- 
LAR 



44 Sbort 1bt6tori^ of Spaim 

The republican idea had in the mean 
time, under such leaders as Garibaldi and 
Mazzini in Italy, and Kossuth in Hungary, 
taken a deep hold in Europe. France had 
apparently forever broken with kings. 
She was a great and powerful republic 
and a dangerous example for discontented 
European nations. 

CiASTELAE, a pure and saga- 
/ cious Spanish statesman, led 
a movement at this critical 
time toward establishing a 
republic in Spain. But such 
a cause needs more than 
leaders. It needs a power- 
ful, intelligent, and patriotic 
following. This Castelar, with all the ma- 
gic of his eloquence and the force of his own 
character and convictions, could not create. 
The Carlists of course were busy schem- 
ing to carry out their long-delayed hopes. 
So between them and the Republicans, 
the people were driven to an immediate 
decision, which proved a very wise one. 




Sbort Ibietore of Spain* 45 

The fugitive Queeu Isabella had a young 
son Alfonso, who was at this time (1874) ALFONSO 
just seventeen years of age. 

The young prince was recalled from 
exile and proclaimed King Alfonso XII. 
Some of us can remember the romantic 
marriage which quickly followed with the 
lovely Mercedes, granddaughter of Louis 
Philippe. The young cousins had always 
been deeply attached to each other, so 
it was like the conclusion of a charming 
love story when they were married. But 
in five short months Mercedes died. Peo- 
ple wept as they read of the awful grief of 
Alfonso, when he spent the night in the 
gloomy Escurial, watching over the re- 
mains of his dead bride. 

But kings cannot cherish such griefs. 
Another bride was sought for him. Chris- 
tine, a fair young- Austrian princess, was 
brought to Madrid and they were married 
with great splendor. 

Alfonso showed no great kingly quali- 
ties, but he had warm, human affections 



46 Sbort IbiBtot^ of Spatn^ 

and manifested a desire to rule justly and 
kindly. It would probably have been well 
for Spain if his life could have been pro- 
longed, but in 1885, after a reign of 
eleven years, he too lay in state in the 
gloomy Escurial where he had wept over 
Mercedes. 

His son, who was born after his death, 
is now under tutors and governors, being 
trained to be King of Spain. He is eleven 

i?„ years old, and a frail, delicate boy. Until 
.2x111 

he is old enough to reign, his mother, 
Christine, is Queen Regent— that is, she 
represents him on the throne. It is prob- 
able that when this boy is crowned Alfonso 
XIII. Spain will have lost Cuba, her last 
great possession in the Western Hemi- 
sphere. 

Maey Platt Parmele. 



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